About this lazy. And slovenly.
Too busy playing Fallout 3 to write anything worthwhile about Fallout 3. Trying to not finish the game so I can keep playing it. In short, I've been doing all the side quests and making up my own quests that the game doesn't know about. I've been collecting skulls and arranging them on the bookshelf in my Lab.
I've been meaning to write about my recent surplus of games for awhile. Because of said surplus I've been far too preoccupied. First and foremost is Mirror's Edge. I demoed it on PS3 but decided to purchase it for the 360 since the controller is far superior. Mirror's Edge. A gorgeous landscape of (mostly) rooftops in which we are urged to run, jump, wallride wallrun, swing, and slide. The game mechanics are simple to understand and after learning the basic control scheme is a lot of fun when it isn't being hindered by flawed hit detection and button mapping that is not customizable. Why EA, why do you give me a game that is saturated white in mostly light bloom and add to it by having the option to raise the brightness? Instead, I'd love to replace my gamma/brightness calibration with the option to make some button changes. Seriously, I can't begin to describe the frustration of playing a game in first person view that uses a trigger bumper instead of a face button (A! The A button is always jump!) in order to jump.
But I digress. Wait, no I don't.
Here's an early production shot of the main character, Faith, as seen in the glass reflection of a building's facade. Cool, nothing amazing or anything but it certainly isn't ugly and the design is straightforward - a woman of a questionably Asian background with tattoos has paused from her daily routine to admire her reflection in the side of a building. From the skyline in the background we get the impression that she's high above the streets of a city. She's rather fit, carries a yellow messenger bag and wears only one red fingerless glove. Where's the other one? Did she lose it? Where did it go?
There is a story here. Somewhere. If you can call it that. We're fighting the government, or something, maybe the future-cops? We fight baddies by delivering packages of . . . stuff. We transport the packages over roofs and through buildings by running and jumping and being pretty radical all the time to . . . someone at . . . somewhere. I think. I would have enjoyed the entirety of Mirror's Edge much more if the story were cut from the game completely. Combat is nonexistent when it isn't essential to advancing - like making it to an exit that is guarded. You'll find more often than anything else that you'll be running around baddies and away from combat.
Mirror's Edge plays much better when you get it in your head that it's just a puzzle game and nothing else. Problem: Guards on left roof. Solution: Run over to the roof on the right. Problem: Guards in front of only door to the room I need to be in. Solution: Use crappy combat system to take 'em out or use window. Problem: I need a gun because I'm forced into combat. Solution: No you don't you pussy. Just fight 'em. Since you can't carry a gun take one from that guy. Pew pew pew. Problem: I can totally make that jump. Solution: No you can't because I said so. Go the other way that makes no sense.
This is the only shot of rendered Faith in the game that looks good. Out of the two. After each mission we're treated to a horrible cartoon cutscene (go on, see reference) which screams, "This is totally not important, we threw it together so you'd have something to look at instead of a loading graphic. Please ignore it. We copied the style from those E-surance commercials but our story is way worse. We aren't sorry." It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't presented with a wonderfully beautiful introductory video, portraying Faith in her fully rendered glory, and a snippet of what could have been a much broader plot. Instead we get the comic book thing which would have been fine if that was how it presented the storyline throughout the duration of gameplay.
Unfortunately Mirror's Edge can't decide what it wants to be. It wants to be the cool fully rendered three dimensional character populated cityscape but it loves to be a poorly done comic book. It wants to be an immersive free running puzzle platformer but it really likes sub-par combat and gunfight mechanics. It wants to have a deep and unpredictably intense storyline set in a futuristic environment inhabited by diverse and well-rounded characters that develop with the plot. It is a B-movie production ruining what could have been an A-list title. There's potential in Mirror's Edge for a great game but it runs the blade.
Simply put, Mirror's Edge is a lot of fun if you can live with all the bullshit it comes with. It's a very quick game - maybe eight hours at best and it will leave you wanting more. Not in the sense that you'll want to play it a lot more once it's over but in the sense that you'll say, "Wait, that's it? Really? I thought there was more." It doesn't go that deep.
Ever since I discovered Flickr's Explore page I've been not-so-secretly lusting for some placement on it. Don't know what I'm talking about? Let me break it down. Everyday the fine folks at Flickr showcase the 500 most interesting photos uploaded on that day on their Explore page. The top 500 most interesting out of the daily ten million. What defines a subjective thing like interestingness? I don't know how it can be defined or ranked but Flickr applied for a patent on it, with math and everything. I don't know how it works but I want in. I want in a whole lot more. I know I'm not that great of a photomancer (That's right, I just made that up) but I check out my flickr stats everyday to see how heavy my account traffic has been. Usually before I check my e-mail. Usually before I get out of bed.
I check and check and check to give the project some kind of meaning. As if I suspect that one day, through a magical or soul-selling kind of way, my traffic would go from a couple hundred to something astronomical. A number so obscene and outlandishly unfathomable that just seeing it would make that small part of your brain that handles numbers, (the intraparietal sulcus, I looked it up!) detach and become sentient beyond you. A part of your brain would grow it's own brain. It would have a mind of it's own and it would hate you. It would hate you so hard that you would die through sheer force of will. The autopsy report would claim that the deceased died of bearing witness to a huge fucking number, also that the intraparietal sulcus left a mess on it's way to space camp.
So, having a photato (that's right, I made that up too) featured in Explore is like winning a really cool prize for me. A prize in the, "You're As Subjectively Good As These Other 499 People" contest. Or the top 500 of the daily ten million. I had one ranked at #499 a couple of months ago. It was great for me, really, anything for the ego. So today when I checked and saw that I had another I was quite pleased by it. Especially now since I can rub it in Dan's filthy fucking face for saying, "That's not how the sky looks, that tree is stupid, you suck, everything you do sucks, I hope you and everything you are dies!" I may have exaggerated. I'm just jealous because I'm really envious of his and the other Dan's abilities. They're both fantastic and I wish I could be as talented and driven as they are.
Because it's just this and video games.
Some people know me quite well. Well enough to know that I can fake kindness and genuine interest very, very well. It's amazing and a lot of people get to bear witness to this craft first-hand every day. The people who know me well enough to understand my expertise, and who've pointed it out to me after noticing it, are my coworkers. At work my proficiency for duplicity reaches an apex, a critical mass. I arrive, clock in, and become a thing of lies. Years of feigning interest in the most mundane (with a smile and positive attitude mind you, this is technically a customer service kind of thing) have culminated, amassing each misleading moment into a spire of deceit, where a throne of fraud may be found nestled upon its summit.
In this super-comfy chair you'll find me. The thing of lies. Wearing a cool mask or something so you don't know who it is, 'cause you know, I'm fucking mysterious and it works as a metaphor. My point: The people who go to my place of business, the patronage, have no idea that I fucking hate them so bad that it could one day destroy all life as we know it. It's quite the opposite for them I imagine. I'm pretty sure that they are so contented by our friendship that the fear of death, for themselves and all of humanity, no longer exists. We are such good pals that the happiness we generate fuels a spectral engine of euphoria capable of, not just voiding all time and space of anything that's ever been or will be a detriment to the universe (parallel or otherwise), but it also makes iced cream.
"So, you honest about anything?" Yeah. I'll never be a wedding photographer. "Liar! You did a wedding!" Yeah, I did it for Josh and Kristin. Josh and Kristin are my friends though and there isn't much I wouldn't do for my friends. It sucked having to transition from what I'm accustomed to and doing some on the fly learning. If it were for anyone else I wouldn't have done it and I certainly would not have all these shots to go through in post (156 done!). I hate wedding photography and I'll never be a wedding photographer but their wedding was a lot of fun and I had a great night. Besides, I had great time pretending to be something I'm not. Just like my other job.
I think this is my favorite one:
I'll keep it short next time. I wanted to get out of photoshop for awhile without playing Left 4 Dead or Fallout 3.
